Mrs. Rabbit

Mrs. Rabbit (or, Mrs. Josephine Rabbit née Bunny) is an anthropomorphic character who appears in three children's books written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter. Mrs. Rabbit is the widow of Mr. Rabbit and the mother of a son, Peter, and three daughters Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail. She is the aunt of Benjamin Bunny and presumably the sister of Benjamin's father Mr. Bunny. She is the grandmother of nephew Benjamin's and daughter Flopsy's children, the six Flopsy Bunnies.

Mrs. Rabbit makes her first appearance in The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902). She lives "in a sand-bank underneath the root of a very big fir-tree" with her children Peter, Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail. She forbids her children to enter the garden of Mr. McGregor because it was there that her husband met his end and was baked into a pie by Mrs. McGregor. When she goes shopping, her son Peter immediately enters the garden where loses his clothes while being chased about by Mr. McGregor. He escapes and returns home weary and ill. Mrs. Rabbit puts him to bed with a dose of camomile tea – an incident depicted in the book's frontispiece. She is depicted in other illustrations in the book.

Mrs. Rabbit next appears in The Tale of Benjamin Bunny (1904). She makes her living in the book by knitting "rabbit-wool mittens and muffetees" and by selling herbs, rosemary tea, and "rabbit-tobacco" (lavender). In the frontispiece, she is depicted in her burrow shop sitting beneath a placard reading "Josephine Bunny licensed to sell Tea & Tobacco". Presumably, she has returned to using her maiden name. When she calls for her daughter Cottontail to fetch more camomile, Peter assumes it is intended for his health and slips away with his cousin Benjamin to retrieve his clothes from Mr. McGregor's garden. Mrs. Rabbit forgives Peter his escapade once he returns home because he brings with him his lost clothes. He has brought her a few onions from the garden which she strings up and hangs from the ceiling with the herbs and rabbit tobacco. She is pictured in her burrow shop in three illustrations that include the frontispiece and the last illustration.

Mrs. Rabbit makes her final appearance in The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies (1909). Here, her role is minimal and she appears in only one illustration. Peter and his mother have gone into business together and operate a nursery garden. Mrs. Rabbit is depicted in one illustration spreading her skirt to hide the cabbages in the garden from her "improvident but cheerful" (and hungry) relatives, a move that almost costs her her grandchildren. In the original frontispiece, a sign at the garden read, "Peter Rabbit & Mother—Florists—Gardens neatly razed. Borders devastated by the night or year."

Aside from the books, Mrs. Rabbit has been depicted in porcelain figurines from Beswick and Royal Albert, on dishes, and other media.

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Works cited

External links

• The Tale of Peter Rabbit Audio Book at Project Gutenberg